PLANT HEALTH

Activities:

Plants comprise the key component for -direct or indirect- human nutrition. Agriculture must be highly productive in order to meet the increasing demand for food, feed, fuel and fibre to support a rapidly growing global human population, as well as reach higher quality providing health benefits. Because of the large areas devoted to agriculture and the large demand of resources, the technologies used in the production and protection of plants are highly relevant for the global environment. Pathogens and pests compete with humans for plant-based food. The impact of these biota onto plants and plant protection in agriculture, forestry and the natural (non-human made) environment is the main area for the Plant Health (PH) working group (WG) of EPSO. Pathogens and pests cause disease or damage to their hosts that accounts for up to 25% of global crop losses in the five major crops. Crop losses need to be significantly reduced both in the field as well as during the post-harvest storage and processing for human and animal consumption.

To sustainably improve plant health specifically in European agriculture, the Plant Health WG proposes to focus on three tasks:

• To develop novel, sustainable pathogen & pest control methods for plant health protection
• To detect pathogens & pests that affect plant health and reduce crop yields
• To develop ready-to-apply pathogen & pest management technologies and disseminate them to end users.

Raising the societal awareness on how plant health protection could contribute to food security, sustain farmers’ income, protect biodiversity and reduce impacts on the environment, ensuring a high-quality product and boosting economic development is a major challenge. This requires a joint effort and engagement of academia with industry, farmers, citizens and policy makers.

The Plant Health WG will link, for instance, to our Photosynthesis, abiotic stress, input use efficiency WG regarding abiotic stress, water and nutrient use efficiency and photosynthesis, to our Nutritional Security WG on crop nutritional quality and the Tree and Forestry Biology and Biotechnology WG.

Members:

Gian Paolo Accotto, CNR / IT

Khalid Amari, JKI, DE

Cristina Azevedo, ITQB, PT

Riccardo Baroncelli , Univ Bologna, IT

Yaroslav Blume, UKR

Thierry Candresse, INRAE, FR

Jana Collatz, Agroscope, CH

Sandra Correia, Univ Coimbra, PT

Eduardo de la Peña, CSIC, ES

Barbara De Coninck, KU Leuven, BE

Veronique Decroocq, INRAE, FR

Isabel Diaz, CBGP, ES

Juliane Dohm, BOKU, AT

Matthias Erb, Univ Bern, CH

Andrea Ficke, NIBIO, NO

Giuseppe Firrao, Univ Udine, IT

Eleanor Gilroy, Hutton, UK

Rita Grosch, IGZEV, DE

Kristina Gruden, NIB, SI

Emilio Guerrieri, CNR / IT

Jacek Hennig, IBB, PL

Heinz Himmelbauer, BOKU, AT

Ralph Hueckelhoven, TUM, DE

Marja Jalli, LUKE, FI

Beat Keller, Uni ZUR, CH

Natalia Kozub, IFBG, UKR

Magda Krzymowska, IBB, PL

Dmitry Lapin, Ultrecht Univ, NL

Paola Leonetti, CNR, IT

Ainhoa Martinez, CSIC, ES

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO

Antonio Molina, CBGP, ES

Vitantonio Pantaleo, CNR, IT

Iakovos Pantelides – Univ Technology, CY

Marusa Pompe-Novak, NIB, SI

Maria Pozo, CSIC, ES

Hans Rediers, KU Leuven, BE

Marleen Riemens, WUR, NL

Tina Romeis, IPB, DE

Eve Runno-Paurson, EMU, EE

Merike Sõmera, Taltech, EE

Davide Spadaro, Univ Torino, IT

Ian Toth, Hutton, UK

Roberto Tuberosa, Univ Bologna, IT

Leo van Overbeek, WUR, NL

Nicole van Dam, IGZEV, DE

Carlota Vaz Pato, ITQB, PT

Susanne Vogelgsang, Agroscope, CH

Andreas Voloudakis, AUA, GR

Ralf Wilhelm, JKI, DE

Przemyslaw Wojtaszek, Univ Poznan, PL

Cyril Zipfel, Uni ZUR, CH

Rita Zrenner, IGZEV, DE

Observers:

Claudius  Marondedze, Euroseeds, BE